Ronke Kehinde/
No fewer than 30 African countries have registered to participate in the 2019 edition of Sterling Bank’s Agriculture Summit Africa.
A brainchild of the agriculture team within Sterling Bank, the Summit is being put together to create a convergence for public and private sector players to highlight and leverage the opportunities that prevail within Agriculture and across its entire value chain.
Countries represented at this year’s summit include Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Ghana, South Africa, Burundi, Botswana, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Egypt and Malawi amongst others. Participants from outside Africa include representatives from the USA, UK, Turkey and Germany.
The oversubscribed conference seeks to prepare African countries to take advantage of the vast opportunities across the Agriculture value chain and prepare Africa’s agribusiness practitioners for the potential and opportunities ahead.
Speaking at a press conference to officially close registration to the conference, Mrs Bukola Awosanya, Head of Agriculture Desk at Sterling Bank expressed her amazement at the sheer magnitude of interest the conference generated.
“We had hoped that 500 people would participate, but it turns out this is such an important subject on the continent. More than 4,000 people registered for the conference and plans are in top gear to ensure a truly successful, meaningful interaction amongst players in this sector,” she said.
This year’s conference has the theme ‘Agriculture: Your Piece of the Trillion- Dollar Economy’.
According to Mrs Awosanya, the theme was inspired by the World Bank’s projection that the agriculture sector would exceed $1 trillion within a decade and would facilitate debate on key issues including access to capital by investors across the value chain, access to electricity, better technology and digitization methods and well-irrigated land to grow high-value nutritious foods.
The benefits of this are said to be enormous as the growth of the sector will help increase exports and income levels, create employment, reduce poverty, boost growth rates, and promote food self-sufficiency across the continent while concurrently safeguarding the environment.
The Summit will take place under the distinguished Chairmanship of His Royal Majesty, Emir Sanusi Lamido, the Emir of Kano State, with His Excellency, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria delivering the keynote address.
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